De oude stad was door de archeoloog opgegraven.
The old city had been excavated by the archaeologist.
Breakdown of De oude stad was door de archeoloog opgegraven.
zijn
to be
oud
old
de stad
the city
door
by (agent in a passive sentence)
de archeoloog
the archaeologist
opgraven
to excavate
Questions & Answers about De oude stad was door de archeoloog opgegraven.
Why does the Dutch sentence use was when the English translation says "had been"?
This is the core of the Dutch past perfect passive! In English, we say "had been [done]". But in Dutch, the passive voice is formed using the verb zijn (to be) rather than "to have". To make it past perfect, you use the simple past of zijn, which is was. So, was ... opgegraven translates to "had been excavated".
Where is the Dutch word for "been" in this sentence?
There isn't one! English uses three verbs for the past perfect passive ("had" plus "been" plus the past participle). Dutch only needs two: the simple past of zijn (here, was) plus the past participle (opgegraven). Adding a word like geweest (been) here would be grammatically incorrect in Dutch.
Why do we use door here instead of bij to mean "by"?
In Dutch passive sentences, the person or thing doing the action is always introduced with the preposition door (by/through). The word bij usually translates to "by" only in the sense of physical location, like standing by a window, or being at someone's house.
Why is the -ge- in the middle of opgegraven?
The infinitive is opgraven (to excavate or dig up), which is a separable verb made of op plus graven. When forming the past participle of a separable verb, the -ge- part gets sandwiched right between the separable prefix (op) and the root verb (graven).
A quick refresher: why does oud get an -e at the end to make oude?
The word stad is a de-word (de stad). When an adjective comes before a definite noun (a noun using de or het), it gets an -e added to the end. The main time you drop the -e is when an adjective comes before a het-word that uses the indefinite article een (a/an).
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